Service above self.
With 1.2 million members worldwide, Rotary International has a well-deserved global reputation for humanitarian outreach that promotes world understanding and peace. Perhaps less understood, because of the humility of its members, is that Rotary’s main mission — service above self — begins at home in the local community and workplace.
The Poulsbo-North Kitsap and Kingston-North Kitsap Rotary clubs are examples of local leaders in community service, focused on making the world a better place right here at home.
Only eight years old with 37 members, the Kingston Rotary is the smaller club on the block with a big heart for community service. Among many initiatives, Supporting Schools and Parks around Kingston (SPARK) is the driving force behind organizing, fundraising and constructing a new $25,000 picnic shelter at Village Green Park.
Kingston Rotary also champions a local “feed the children” campaign which, for a second year, helps provide elementary school children with healthy lunches during the summer break.
While both Rotary clubs are mutually helpful to the other, the most unifying project that Kingston and Poulsbo both focus on is the Homeless Youth Task Force, a regional concern to address youth homelessness in North Kitsap County.
Through the use of grants, sponsors, volunteers and assistance from other service clubs and churches — including the Bainbridge Island Rotary and City of Poulsbo — Poulsbo and Kingston Rotarians lead a fight against homelessness through their efforts to establish a Coffee Oasis Outreach Center in Poulsbo. The Outreach Center is currently under construction at 780 Iverson Road.
“This is a unifying project for the whole community,” Poulsbo Rotary President Meredith Green said. “It is a heartwarming program about helping kids that need a hand.
“To go down a path of homelessness is so painful. If you can intervene with youth at this point, you can turn a life around.”
The 130-member, 35-year-old Poulsbo-North Kitsap Rotary Club supports other notable local projects, including Eli’s Place, a collaboration with the YWCA to aid survivors of domestic violence in their struggle to recover and sustain themselves in the community. Eli’s Place was established after the death of Poulsbo Rotarian Ardis Morrow’s grandnephew, the victim of domestic abuse.
Poulsbo’s Interact Club also works with students to teach the importance of personal integrity, leadership, respect and hard work.
Tests of truth, fairness, goodwill and mutual benefit help guide all Rotarians in how they think, say, or do to serve in their community.
Past Kingston Rotary President Clint Boxman put it this way; “We have 37 heroes in our club for the benefit of the entire community, working together as one.
“The more members we have, the greater good we can do,” Boxman said. “The more money we can raise to reach more people, and the more we can infuse back into the community.”
For more information on the Poulsbo and Kingston Rotary clubs, visit www.poulsborotary.org or www.kingston-nkrotary.org.
